Heard It Through The Grapevine
by etraytin
Summary: It's the middle of Transition, and Josh has stopped answering his phone. CJ is determined to figure out why.


Author's Note: This is another Tumblr promptfic, based on a prompt from Anonymous: "A story somewhere in season 7 after transition/before santos's inauguration with everyone (like CJ, Jed, Charlie, Toby, etc) finding out josh and donna are together."

…...

During the campaign, it had been unusual for CJ to call Josh. For one thing, he was completely intolerable most of the time, careening wildly between hyperactive braggadocio and outright panic without anybody to hold his leash or talk him off the ledges. (She felt guilty about that sometimes, thinking back to an awkward conversation about even more awkward truths, but at the end of the day, Donna was her friend too and Donna didn't deserve to babysit forever.) For the other thing, she simply had no need to talk to the campaign very often. She had Toby for that, and later Will, and Will would pass off the duty to Carol because he was afraid of Josh, but information still got passed along. Once Transition started, however, it became a lot more important to figure out what was happening in the Santos camp.

She didn't think anything of it when she placed a call that went to Josh's voicemail. Sure, he usually had the thing glued to his ear, but he talked to other people as well, and it was possible that once in a blue moon he might sleep or use the bathroom. She tried again two hours later, and was a little more surprised to once again be dumped to voicemail. Suspicious that he might be screening his calls for some perverse reason, she borrowed Margaret's cell phone and tried again. Voicemail. By then it was starting to get late, so she left it for the morning. She tried again bright and early, and was greeted by a message telling her that the voicemailbox she was trying to reach was full. Something was not right.

After a moment of thought, CJ called Edie Ortega, who she'd worked with back in the EMILY's List days and who was considerably less abrasive than Lou Thornton. Edie passed along the rather shocking information that Josh had gone on vacation. CJ had needed to repeat the word vacation several times just to be sure she was hearing right. "Josh Lyman does not go on vacation."

"He does now, for the next nine days," Edie assured her. "I talked to Ronna Beckman yesterday, she booked the tickets herself, two round-trips to Hawaii. Didn't take his phone or his Blackberry."

"And you're sure he wasn't kidnapped?" CJ asked suspiciously. "Josh hates vacation, and he hates water and sand, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't like sunshine very much. Why would he go to Hawaii?"

"I don't know about Hawaii," Edie told her, "but the vacation was because of Sam Seaborn. Josh wants him real bad for the DCOS slot, and Sam told him he wouldn't take it unless Josh took a real vacation. The Co- the President-Elect backed him up on it."

That made CJ's next call easy to figure out. "Riddle me this, Samuel, why does a man who hates sand and ocean take a ten-day vacation to Hawaii?"

"And hello to you too, CJ," Sam's smiling voice came over the phone. "I'm doing very well, thank you. The weather here in DC is just terrible."

"Yeah, yeah, we'll have a kaffeeklatsch later and get caught up," she told him brusquely, for all she couldn't resist a smile herself. "Your chief of staff is AWOL to the one place on Earth he's least likely to go. I hear it's your fault. What's the story?"

"I take responsibility for the vacation, but not the destination," Sam told her. "That was all Josh. I asked him too, but he said Donna had always wanted to go there."

CJ's brain did a quick record-scratch. Two tickets, Edie had said. "Sam Seaborn, did Josh go on vacation to Hawaii and take Donna with him and you are only mentioning this now?"

Sam sounded undeniably amused. "That wasn't the question you asked," he pointed out.

CJ had to sit for a minute and take all that in. Four years ago, this would've been a nightmare scenario for CJ-the-Press-Secretary. She'd had contingency plans worked up, for god's sake. Two years ago, it would've been unthinkable. Before the CODEL to Gaza, CJ had been absolutely convinced that anything Josh and Donna might have had between them was burnt out, except for a lingering one-sided devotion that Donna couldn't shake. After the CODEL, CJ hadn't been as sure that the devotion was one-sided, but the burnout was a sure thing. She'd honestly felt sad about that, especially when it led to Donna leaving, then Josh following her out the door in the other direction. The paths peoples' lives took could be very funny sometimes. Even after Donna had mentioned something maybe happening with Josh a few weeks ago, CJ had found it difficult to credit. There didn't seem to be much chance of walking back that kind of implosion.

But now... "So this vacation... she's not going along to work, right?"

Sam laughed. "Nope. I don't have the whole story, but there's been something going on since at least Election Day."

"That would've been a rough day to try and sort out a relationship," CJ observed.

"Really rough," Sam agreed. "And the days after that weren't exactly much better. Maybe ten days in paradise will give them a chance to figure things out. I was asking around the campaign office, and apparently they were both pretty miserable on their own. Josh considerably more loudly so."

"Of course," CJ snorted. "So do I call you when I need information from the campaign? Do you work there now?"

"Deputy chief of staff, god help me," Sam confirmed. "So yeah, for the next nine days, I'm your guy. What do you need?"

"You'll do great," she assured him, and then got down to actually grilling him about transition procedures. When she finally had the answers she needed, she hung up the phone. "Margaret!"

Margaret hurried into the office, her distinctively wide eyes bright and interested. "Yes?"

"Josh and Donna have gone to Hawaii together for ten days. There is no work involved, it's a vacation. Have fun with that." CJ bent her head back to her work, not quite able to keep from smirking as Margaret made a little squealing noise and hurried out to activate her vast gossip network.

"CJ, are you telling tales out of school again?" The Chief of Staff hastily rose to her feet as President Bartlet walked into her office, leaning on his cane.

"Not at all, Sir," she reassured him, keeping her face perfectly sober. "I have it on excellent authority that the trip was sanctioned by the President-Elect himself."

"And who might that excellent source be?" he asked skeptically. "An unnamed campaign official? Someone in the travel office? A journalist of ill repute?" Sometimes CJ suspected that the president had Debbie pencil in fifteen minutes of "give CJ hell" at the beginning of each day. He and Leo had certainly spent enough time harassing each other, so maybe it just made him more comfortable with her as his right-hand person.

"Sam Seaborn, sir," she replied, leaning back against her desk and tucking her tongue into her cheek. "A lawyer, I'll give you that, but I think we can trust him on this one."

"A scoundrel, but one on our side," President Bartlet agreed with a grin. "But what does he know about the personal lives of former White House staffers turned future White House staffers?"

"He's one himself now," CJ told him with a faint smile. "Josh hired him on to be Deputy Chief of Staff. The vacation was apparently a prerequisite, I imagine because Sam has worked with Josh on the point of detonation before and wanted to head it off."

"Sam is a sharp young man," the president declared. "He'll go far, I've always said so. Isn't that right, Charlie?"

"Yes sir," Charlie said automatically as he walked in with a stack of briefing books and placed them on CJ's desk. "What was the question?"

"Charlie," the President went on, leaning forward on his cane. "What would you say if I told you that our friend Joshua Lyman has gone off on a Hawaiian vacation with Donnatella Moss?"

"I would say it's about time, sir," Charlie replied. "I was pretty surprised that he didn't seal the deal the day after she stopped working in the White House. Faint heart never won fair lady."

"That's very true, Charlie," President Bartlet agreed, looking entirely too pleased with himself. "Though that wise aphorism is one I could apply to more than my former Deputy Chief of Staff. My youngest daughter is not a patient woman."

"No sir," Charlie ducked his head. "But she has made it clear she doesn't want even the slightest chance of a state wedding. I can bide my time."

The President harumphed, giving CJ time to jump back into the conversation. "Charlie, Josh is going to be out of contact for the next nine days, so any contact with the campaign should go to Sam Seaborn. Josh just hired him on."

"Nice," Charlie said, looking pleased. "You know, nine days is a lot of time. Most waiting periods are three days or less. They really could seal the deal while they're down there."

"Surely not," President Bartlet said, looking affronted that his staffers might hold a wedding without him.

"God, I hope not," CJ said at the same time, with great feeling.

"That's not particularly romantic of you, Claudia Jean," the President remarked.

"Sir, nobody can sort out a nine year relationship in nine days," she pointed out. "I'm incredibly happy for them if they're ready to start a relationship. They waited a long time. But waiting isn't the same as dating, and a grand gesture isn't going to substitute for actual conversations."

"You do make a point," President Bartlet agreed reluctantly. "Although I can't see there being a much more congenial time once their administration takes office."

"I guess they'll just have to figure it out, sir," CJ offered. "They're smart people, most of the time."

"Yes," he agreed with a sigh, "Meddling would most likely be counterproductive, and we do have the country to run, at least for a few more weeks. It's a shame though, my wife loves to meddle."

CJ and Charlie both stifled laughter, carefully not looking at each other. Nobody enjoyed meddling more than the President, when he could get away with it. "Yes sir," CJ said with admirable sobriety. "Do you still want senior staff in your office this morning?"

"Going to drag us back to the business of the country by the scruffs of our neck, eh?" President Bartlet asked rhetorically. "Yes, let's do that, and then I'll take my call sheet for the day. Bunch of vultures, pecking at the bones and we're not even dead yet." He muttered over that a bit as he went back to the Oval Office.

"Ten dollars says Josh screws it up before New Years," Charlie said in a low voice to CJ.

She cocked her head. "Screws it up like needs an acre of flowers, or screws it up like ends it?"

"The flowers thing. Betting on the other thing's not cool."

CJ laughed. "I've known Josh way too long to take that bet. But I hope they're going to be okay. Now can you give me the draft paperwork on 1174?" Charlie nodded and they both went back to work, tuning out the muted noise of Margaret making phone calls in the background.


End file.
